"Television is a goddamned amusement park."
This week, Jalal Haddad joins us to chat about the 2023 Golden Globe TV nominations with a slight detour into the Film noms. Megan couldn’t join us, but she’ll be back next week!
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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It’s our 400th episode. Over the past eight years, the Water Cooler Podcast turned out 400 episodes since originally started by Craig Kennedy back in 2014. On the podcast, Joey Moser, Megan McLachlan, and Clarence Moye grew to become a tight-knit family. Here, in our 400th episode, the Water Cooler Gang reminisces about their growing friendship and the change in the television landscape. Then, just for old time’s sake, Clarence serves up a pop quiz based on our very first episode to pit Megan and Joey against each other. Who will win? Join us as we trip down memory lane.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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This week, we’re back to television and discussing FX’s new limited series Fleishman Is In Trouble, based on the novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner who also serves as showrunner and primary writer for this adaptation. The limited series stars Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzy Caplan, and Adam Brody as New Yorkers exploring modern relationships, marriage, parenting, work/life balance, and divorce. We’ve seen three episodes thus far, and what we’ve seen certainly intrigues us. As we discuss on the podcast, Claire Danes (Homeland) gives a stunning performance as a woman on the verge. The rest of the cast is very good, but Danes’ turn is a very special addition to her impressive body of work. We use her performance as a jumping-off point for Emmy / Golden Globes talk specific to Fleishman.
Oh yeah, and we do catch each other up on the films we caught over the Thanksgiving break.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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This week, we’re putting television aside in favor of one of the most acclaimed films of the year: Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin. We talk about the film, what it means to be an allegory, and what future it holds with the Academy. That leads us into a broader conversation about where things stand in the 2023 Oscar race. With our recent Oscar Squad predictions locked in, what would we change? What do we think could take home the top prize at this stage of the game?
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
NOTE: We will be taking the Thanksgiving Holiday off and will return with episode 399 around November 28.
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This week, we revisit the Fantasy Oscar Pool contest between Megan, Joey, and Clarence. Some things changed since making their initial selections back before the festival season kicked off. So, which films and actors will they dump for newer, better (we hope) contenders? Follow along on this week’s podcast. Soon, the official rankings will be live at AwardsDaily.com so you can track the three M’s when the critics’ awards season starts.
But first, we do a quick roundtable of the latest movies, television shows, and books we’ve caught up on including Netflix’s The Crown.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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We’re recuperating from a busy pre-Halloween weekend. Megan’s back from Savannah and has the low-down on one of the South’s biggest film festivals. Joey visited Boston, did some sightseeing, and saw Aftersun. Clarence took it easy this weekend but was able to catch a few things here and there. We all regroup on the fall film season and start planning for next week’s Fantasy Oscar Pool trade round. That is after we’re back some a quick jaunt to Sicily with HBO and Mike White’s The White Lotus. How does the second of the anthology series treat us? Are we bewitched or befuddled by its Italian charms?
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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It’s the spookiest time of the year. Coincidentally, it’s also one of our very favorite entertainment times of the year. We’ve talked about the huge amount of truly great horror/thriller content in theaters this year. What else keeps us up at night? On this week’s podcast, we’re full of spooky recommendations from film, television, books, and more for your Halloween (dis)pleasure. We dive into the latest (last?) entry in the Halloween series: Halloween Ends. We also talk about Netflix’s new thriller/horror offerings including Mike Flanagan’s (The Haunting of Hill House) thriller series The Midnight Club and Ryan Murphy’s The Watcher. And we offer up a host of unexpected thriller/horror media you might want to give a shot until All Hallow’s Eve ranging from AppleTV+’s Servant to Unsolved Mysteries to David Fincher’s Zodiac…
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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This week, we’re turning our eyes to the 2023 Emmy race at the Water Cooler. The halfway point of the 2023 Emmy cycle is fast approaching, and while we have a lot of prestige television to premiere, strong candidates already emerged. HBO’s House of the Dragon, ABC’s Abbott Elementary seem sure things at this point. What else lurks in the television wilds? Will the Television Academy again broadly embrace Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building? What will they make of FX’s The Bear, a half-hour drama series? Have any limited series debuted that will be remembered next year? Is one of them Five Days at Memorial? We ask these questions and more on today’s 2023 Emmy cycle catch-up podcast.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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This week, the Water Cooler Gang takes a break from specific topics and runs a round-robin of random entertainment topics. Kind of like Saturday Night Live’s Coffee Talk with Linda Richmond. Remember that? Back when SNL was great? Join us for our relaxed (or in the case of Joey Moser highly anxious) chat.
Also, our apologies for the sound issues. Send emails to Joey Moser.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
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This week, the Water Cooler Gang returns to the world of TV where some new premieres have captured our attention. First, Netflix dropped Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story with little-to-no fanfare. So it must be bad, right? Well, we’ve seen a handful of episodes so far, and we definitely have thoughts. Dahmer stars Evan Peters and Niecy Nash. Then, Modern Family‘s Steven Levitan returns to the world of TV sitcoms with HULU’s Reboot. The streaming comedy features an all-star cast including Keegan-Michael Key, Paul Reiser, Johnny Knoxville, and the great Judy Greer. It focuses on a beloved early 2000s sitcom rebooted for a modern audience.
We hit the merits of both series and look at whether or not either will have a shot at Emmy attention next year.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS